Imperial Valley Christian Center

Interesting Links

Here's some links from around the web that I thought you might find interesting.

Chutzpah, Jesus' Word for Faith

Jesus said that if we had faith nothing would be impossible unto us.

Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

But when Jesus used the word "faith" he didn't just mean agreeing to some doctrinal position, or even, the closer but still not quite right, "trust." When Jesus used the word faith he meant something like what we mean in English when we say "chutzpah. This is an idea I've encountered primarily at the Jerusalem Perspective Website and the different teachers and authors associated with it, but here's a nice explanation I came across from a book by Francis MacNutt called, Healing. Mr. MacNutt used to be a Catholic priest and has a pretty well known healing ministry. Here's the blurb about "chutzpah" from his book:

"A few years ago I got an entirely new understanding of faith that has been most liberating. It came from the late Bob Lindsey, who had been pastor of the Narkiss Street Baptist Church, the largest English-speaking church in Jerusalem. Bob, a Southern Baptist, became involved in the healing ministry and himself had been cured of diabetes through prayer. Bob studied the gospels with a Jewish rabbi and really understood the Hebrew culture in which Jesus lived. So when Bob was visiting the States I thought he would be the perfect person to ask: "What is the meaning of 'faith,' as Jesus himself would have understood it?

" Without hesitation Bob said, "Chutzpah." Now, chutzpah is a Yiddish slang term meaning something like 'nerve' or 'brass,' 'extreme confidence in action.' In today's terms a person with chutzpah is someone who 'goes for it.' A classic Jewish story about chutzpah describes how a boy murdered his mother and father, and then threw himself at the mercy of the judge on the grounds that he was an orphan. Now that's chutzpah!"

So when Jesus tells us to have "faith" when we pray, he means confidence, boldness, assuredness, even brashness. But the word I like the most is audacity,  that's "chutzpah"

Let's start off by looking at a parable that Jesus taught about having chutzpah when we pray:

What Is Love?

This is more from the series I just finished teaching on love.

What is love?

Sometimes we have difficulty determining what love is. There's a guy who hangs out down next to the highway on the street going between WalMart and Target. He holds a cardboard sign saying something like, "Vietnam Veteran, Please Help" while asking for money. Is it love to give to him? If I don't give to him does that mean I'm not walking in love? What if he's a con-man? What if he's not really a Vietnam Veteran but just a vivales as they say in Spanish? Is it still love to give to him? We could make a rule or law out of giving to guys who stand on street corners asking for money. It might even make us feel that we were particularly good if we gave to every such person. But is it always love to do so? Does love give money to a man so he can buy drugs or alcohol? Does love give money to a guy who's just evading responsiblity? Is it love to help him by his drugs? Is it love to support his dishonesty? Is it love to support even just his laziness?

Christians like to make a big deal out of helping the poor. "I go down once a week and work at the homeless shelter aren't I special."  My mom remembers going with a church group to help feed the homeless in our small town. (The weather is really nice here during the winters and so along with snowbirds from the Northern U.S. and from Canada we get an influx of homeless people from the coast.) They had prepared some sack lunches or something to distribute to the homeless. Unfortunately

Saint Patrick

"St. Patrick's Breastplate," a prayer supposedly composed by St. Patrick is so encouraging, such a wonderful example of how we should all pray that I wanted to share part of it here.

Patrick was an amazing guy. For those of you not familiar with his story here's a blurb, which I believe was first printed in Christian History Magazine, but I found it online at: Signs, Wonders &
St. Patrick, By Mary Cagney

"…Patrick faced the most opposition from the druids, who practiced magic, were skilled in secular learning (especially law and history) and advised Irish kings. Biographies of the saint are replete with stories of druids who "wished to kill holy Patrick."

"Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity," Patrick wrote, "but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God almighty who rules everywhere…"

Patrick was as fully convinced as the Celts that the power of the druids was real, but he

Walking In Love

Just finished a multi-part series about walking in love and I learned so much about love I wanted to share it here. Here's my points, 1. Why we need to learn to walk in love. 2. What is love., 3. How can we possibly do that?, 4. The love fight., 5. What to do.

1. Why we need to walk in love.

a. So that our prayers can be answered.

1 John 3:21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. 22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.

Everybody loves the, "…whatsoever we ask we receive…" part of that verse, but the condition for receiving it is that we have confidence toward God. We can't have confidence toward God, i.e. chutzpah or faith, if our heart is condemning us. If we harden our heart when our brother has need, which is what the preceding verses discuss, then our heart will still be hardened when we go before God to ask for something. It is standard practice in Christian circles to credit God for unanswered prayer, but as anyone with a particle of sense and a paucity of theological education could see from the above scripture, if our prayers are not answered the fault is not in our God' but in ourselves. If we want to receive what we ask God for when we pray then we need to learn to walk in love. Most Christians have no idea what it means or how hard and painful it is to walk in love.

Us word of faith preachers are constantly asked about suffering, aren't Christians supposed to suffer? Most American evangelical Christians want to credit their "suffering" for stupidity and hardheartedness to "suffering for the Lord". They try to make a virtue out of the suffering which they have merited for failing to follow after God. They excuse the suffering they endure for failing to walk in the spirit by attributing it to the service of God. But suffering is blessing those who curse you, doing good to those who despitefully use you, helping your brother when he is in need. Real suffering is walking in love.

Dad Hagin used to tell a story about when he was a young pastor during the days of the great depression. A traveling minister had come to town on the bus. He was very discouraged and was trying to get home and had run out of money. He came to the service at Dad Hagin's little church. He didn't ask for anything but as he was leaving dad Hagin felt impressed in his heart to give the man ten dollars he had been saving. These were depression days and $10 was a lot, lot more money that it is today. Dad had been saving that money to buy Christmas for his wife and two little kids. If he gave the evangelist the money there would be no Christmas for his family. He struggled with it for a while but finally obeyed the leading of his spirit and gave the evangelist the money. That is suffering for the Lord. Failing to receive answers to prayer because you never walk in love is not suffering for the Lord that's being a knucklehead.

Dad Hagin said that several years later he was called to pray for a woman who was on her death bed. As he was there praying for her with several women he felt impressed in his spirit to say to the woman, rise up and be healed. He mulled it over for a little and then decided to obey the leading of his spirit and said to the woman, '"Rise up and be healed," and as Dad Haing like to say, the woman did and she was. While they were celebrating this marvelous healing the Lord spoke to papa Hagin and told him, "If you had not obeyed me about that money back then, I would not have been able to use you to heal this woman right now."

If we want our prayers to be answered we need to learn to walk in love.

The Coming Evangelcal Collapse, sounds right to me.

Drudge links to this blog post reprinted in the Christian Science Monitor, arguing that evangelicalism, in the United States is about to collapse, http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

This sounds about right to me. I've been saying for years, to anyone who would listen, which basically means Becky, that Christianity in the United States was about to end. I sometimes think I know what it must have been like to be one of the last Priests of the Roman God's; just before the Christians started crucifying them.

Hey Nietzsche, acting like the old Prophet Elijah, called out Christianity well over a hundred years ago. He said, "Your God is dead that is why he doesn't answer by fire." Evangelical Christianity responded with a bumper sticker. If the leaders of American evangelical Christianity were alive in Elijah's day they'd be the ones trying to explain away, in extremely erudite and scholarly language, the fact that their God had not answered by fire.

No matter. God is not dead. He still answers by fire those who have the chutzpah to call fire down from heaven. The kingdom of God is not co-equal with American evangelicalism perhaps now we will finally bury that odious, bubble boy religion, doctrine of the sovereignty of God. The faster they die off and stop wasting God's money on trying to get, "The World" to like them, the better off the Kingdom of God will be.

More Greek Philosophy vs. Christian Doctrine

Another couple good quotes on one of my favorite subjects. From Justo L. Gonzalez's book,  A History of Christian Thought, Vol 1, From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon:

pg. 50 " Among all the ancient philosophers, it is Plato who had the greatest influence on the early development of Christian thought. Of his teachings, those that most concern us here are the doctrines of the two worlds, of the immortality and the pre-existence of the soul, of knowledge as reminiscence, and of the Idea of the Good."

Most Christians don't realize that early Christianity was heavily influenced by Greek philosophical thought. Its influence really stands out when you look at how early Christianity departed from Jewish thought. So, for example, the average Christian has come to believe that the future life consists of our spirits living in a spiritual place called Heaven, as opposed to the Jewish idea of the resurrection of our dead bodies at some future time. Here's another quote:

Greek Philosphy vs. Christian Doctrine

Okay, here's a subject near and dear to my heart, the influence of Greek Philosophy on the development of Christian doctrine.

It has seemed to me for years that much of traditional Christian doctrine was the result of trying to force the Bible to fit into Greek philosophical categories. This was, to me, particularly evident with respect to the idea of the Sovereignty of God; which seemed to be a complete import from Greek philosophy. It's very hard to square the idea of conditional covenants and conditional promises which abound throughout the Bible, with the idea that God is causing everything that happens. If God is causing everything that happens then what is the point of telling you to not commit adultery? If God is controlling all that happens then what is the point of Jesus saying, "…believe that you receive them and ye shall have them."

The argument for the sovereignty of God must go something like this (I'm saying, 'must go' because as many times as I have heard Christians invoke the sovereignty of God I've never heard anyone set out the argument for it much less any real scriptural defense of it.):

Romans 5:5

Here's another entry from the Greg Marquez Commentary on scripture.

Romans 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

The love of God, not the love for God, is shed abroad in our hearts. This is a regular theme of Paul's. We are a new man, a new creature, made in the likeness of God. Part of that new creation includes God's very own love. We have God's love in our heart. That is why Paul does not set us up a bunch of rules telling us how we should live or walk. We don't need rules for walking in love we have God's love in us. What we need is to let God's love rule in our lives.

The rest of the scripture seems to make very little sense. It's difficult to understand a direct connection between "not ashamed" and God's love being shed abroad in our hearts. As a result some modern translations have translated, "not ashamed" as "does not disappoint".  Which still doesn't make much sense if you're expecting a logical connection between, "does not disappoint" and the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts.

I think if we look at the context though we can see what Paul is saying, and it's pretty powerful stuff. First let's look at the phrase, "not ashamed'.  which according to Thayer's consists of two words:

Romans 1:18

I want to share some thoughts about scriptures I've been studying and meditating on.

Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

This passage of scripture has given rise to a great deal of commentary, and controversy, most of it having to do with the phrase in verse 17, "the righteousness of God." I intend to deal with that phrase in more depth as well but right now I want to focus on what I take to be it's parallel in verse 18, "for the wrath of God is revealed…" By parallel I mean that Paul is comparing two opposites, the righteousness of God is revealed in verse 17 and the wrath of God is revealed in verse 18. My take on it is this, if I can figure out what he means by the wrath of God being revealed then I will know what he means by the righteousness of God being revealed, because they are, if not direct opposites, at least opposed to each other.

I've been meditating and studying on this passage of scripture for some time and today realized that Paul is not saying that the wrath of God has now been revealed, i.e. that it is in a permanent state of being revealed, but rather Paul is  saying that, the wrath of God when it is revealed, is done so in response to the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. In other words when people engage in ungodliness and unrighteousness the wrath of God is revealed against them. He is saying essentially the same thing he says elsewhere for example:

Colossians 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: 6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:

and

Ephesians 5:6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

and even

Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

The important take away from this understanding of the "wrath of God being revealed" is that the verses that follow, (Where Paul talks about how people can know God even without the Word of God because God is revealed to them in nature and how their refusal to acknowledge God leads them further away from him.) are not describing the wrath of God or the results of the wrath of God but are describing the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men which causes the wrath to be manifested.

The Money Comes By Faith

So we've established that God has promised to prosper us, we've seen that this promise is received by faith like everything we receive from God, now I want to talk a little about what faith is.

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But How Does The Money Come?

We've spent a great deal  of time (Not enough apparently judging form the comments at  YouTube.) trying to establish that the Bible teaches that God wants us to prosper. In fact, we demonstrated that the Bible teaches that God has promised to give us power to get wealth. We then established that the Bible teaches that these promises of prosperity belong to the Christians, they are not "just for the jews," as some like to say.

So if you're convinced, as I am, that God wants us to prosper the next questions is: But how does the money come? That's what we want to start talking about here.

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Faith is …

We  Previously  discussed the importance of faith and one of the things we saw was that, at least according to the Bible, our faith can heal others:

James 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

The word "save"  here is the Greek word for healing and so most modern Bibles translate it heal or restore or make well. If we can learn to pray the prayer of faith then we will be able to heal the sick. In order to pray the prayer of faith we're going to have to learn what faith is.

Faith has two parts, we could call them revelation and action. Revelation is the inside part of faith, the spiritual part it is that which motivates, directs, informs, instructs … the second part of faith, i.e. action. Without both you don't have faith. Action without revelation is what we derisively refer to as religion., i.e. action with no spiritual motivation. Revelation without action the Bible calls  "dead" faith.

Here I want to discuss the first part of faith, the revelation part.

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Why God Wants You Rich

We've been teaching on the subject of prosperity for quite a while now, but before continuing I want to discuss the why of prosperity. Why does God want you to prosper? There's more that one reason that God desires are prosperity. Prosperity is good and God is a good God therefore he desires our prosperity… God has promised to prosper us, to keep his promise we have to prosper… It takes money to help the poor so we need to prosper in order to be able to help them. But I believe the most important reason God wants us to prosper is to free us from dependence on the world system. He wants us free to serve him. He wants us free to do what he has created and called us to do. God has promised to prosper us materially and financially so that we can be free to serve him. That's what this message is about.

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You Gotta Have Faith

This is the first episode in a series on the ABC's of Faith. Here I discuss the importance of faith.

The promises set forth in the Bible present a problem for the Christian. For example Philippians 4:19 says "and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Well then how come my needs aren't supplied? One obvious answer is that the promise is a lie, it's not true, it's con, but that's hardly an acceptable answer for a Christian. So Christians have come up with a variety of ways of explaining the discrepancy between reality and the promises.

Some Christians say that the promises are for a future time. "Eschatological"  is the favorite word of many Christians. These Christians might say, 'This promises is true but will only be fully true in some future world.' Other Christians respond that the promises are spiritual. What they mean by spiritual, other than not susceptible to disconfirmation by the senses, isn't particularly clear. In this example they might suggest that the needs referred to are "spiritual" needs.

While both of those answers help to resolve the discrepancy they don't seem to fit the simple meaning of the scripture. If someone wrote you a letter telling you they would take care of all your needs, you probably wouldn't expect that they were promising to do so at some unknown point in the future. Neither would you expect that they were talking about spiritual needs.

I believe there is a better solution to the problem of unfulfilled Biblical promises, faith. Faith is the requirement to receiving from God. Without faith none of the Bible promises will become real in our lives. It is faith that pleases God, that receives answers to prayers and accesses the grace of God. It is faith which allows us to inherit the promises and receive the blessings. It is through faith that we can be healed, heal others and do the works of Jesus.

In this episode I discuss the importance of faith. These are my Keynote slides with audio attached.

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The Promises Belong To Us

Continuing on the theme of prosperity. I've shown you so far that the Bible teaches that God has promised to prosper us. That God swore an oath to Abraham and that part of that promise was that he would give Abraham and his descendants power to get wealth. At this point some people say yes Greg but those promises have nothing to do with the Christian. So in these next two lessons I want to show you that the promises God made to Abraham and his descendants belong to us.

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The Science of Success #2

Changing your mindset is the second part of our discussion of Mindsets, The New Psychology of Success, by Stanford Professor Carol Dweck. How do we change our mindset? First we have to learn to recognize fixed mindset thoughts and then we have to replace them with growth mindset thoughts.

These are my keynote slides with the audio attached.
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The Science of Success

I've really been enjoying and at the same time agonizing over the book, MINDSET, The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck, PH.D., a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. The book presents the results of over 20 years of research into the question of why some experience more success than others.

"For 20 years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value."

The views she is talking about are our old friends, nature versus nurture, genes versus environment, i.q. versus effort. She doesn't really get into the the issue of whether some people are naturally more intelligent or talented than others, that's all besides the point. What her research shows is that people with a fixed mindset, i.e. they believe that their intelligence, creativity, abilities and talents are fixed and cannot be increased, tend to be less successful than people with a growth mindset, who believe that their intelligence, creativity etc. can be developed. The interesting thing is that it doesn't matter if your fixed mindset is high or low, that is if you think you're smart or stupid, if you're a positive thinker or a negative thinker; either way a fixed mindset will impeded your success.

The book is filled with examples of the two types from the world of sports and business and sketches of her tests of the theory with elementary school children and college students.

After thinking about it for several months, here's my take on what Prof. Dweck has discovered. The definition of success for a person with a growth mindset is growth and improvement. Have I improved? Am I doing better today than yesterday? These are the questions a growth mindset uses to evaluate performance. If I have improved then I am a success. If I have not improved then I need to change the way I'm studying, or practicing or preparing.

On the other hand a fixed mindset asks, What is my I.Q.? Am I smarter than the others? Am I better than everyone else? Am I worse than everyone else? Being discovered is the definition of fixed mindset success. If he hasn't been discovered he thinks it's because someone is against him, or he's not good enough or no one will help him.

The growth mindset person sees the trophy, the medal, the promotion, as a mere byproduct of the growth that he has experienced. For the fixed mindset person the trophy, the medal, the promotion, is the point, they are the outward manifestations of his inward superiority.

The irony is that the fixed mindset person ends up sabotaging himself because his fixed mindset world view also makes it difficult for him to take risks, or to develop his abilities, in other words, to grow. The fixed mindset person doesn't, after all, believe in growth. As a result fixed mindset people become quite frustrated.

Prof. Dweck's studies give a scientific basis for something that Coach Wooden, of UCLA Basketball fame, discovered long ago: Focus on effort not winning. The factors which determine whether you will win or loose are not all within your control, but the effort you put in to developing and executing your game is.

I don't believe that I can overstate the importance of this book. I've been reading self help, positive thinking, motivational books since at about 10 years of age I picked up a Norman Vincent Peale book that my mom had checked out of the library. Those books, all good, are trying to deal with the problem by attacking the fruit of an individuals mindset. Prof. Dweck is attacking the problem at the root. This book was for me a very uncomfortable read and forced me to analyze my own mindset and much to the chagrin of this basically fixed mindset person I've discovered that I am in many areas a fixed mindset person. OUCH! But what's worse is realizing that many of the things which I have said and done, thinking I was encouraging others and building them up to achieve success, were in fact helping them to fail. OUCH! OUCH! Well the good news is that you can change your mindset.

Anyway, here's my riff on Prof. Dweck's work. These are my Keynote slides with the audio from the Sunday, January 13, 2008 service.

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Here's some links for more on this topic.
The books website which includes a lot of information, links to articles, interviews and a test of your mindset.
Malcolm Gladwell's article from the New Yorker about talent, Enron and mindsets.
A really good article form Stanford Magazine, about Prof. Dweck and her research. Gives more detail about her background and early research than any of the other sites. Also includes some nice visuals illustrating the difference between mindsets.

 

God Swore He Would Make Us Rich, video

In this episode we're still on the subject, God Wants You Rich, and we're looking specifically at Deuteronomy 8:18

But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

The context of this scripture is that the Children of Israel are about to enter into the promised land. Moses describes what a great land it is, a land where they will not lack anything, where they will live in goodly houses and their gold and silver will multiply. He then warns them against thinking that it is through their efforts that they have become rich and as result turn away from God. But that they must remember it is God who has given them this power to become rich.

A few points we should see from this scripture.
    - God is not against people being rich. He is so not against it that he gives them power to become rich.
    - God's idea of rich is: no lack, fine houses, gold and silver multiplied.
    - God gives this power to get rich in order to fulfill the covenant he swore to Abraham, Issac and Jacob.

What I would really like you to see is that this covenant promise is your God given right.

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God Desires Above All Things That Your Prosper, Video

This is the first episode in a new series, God Wants You Rich. In this first program I briefly deal with the origin of the Christian idea that material things are bad, or that material things are not as important as spiritual things.

The Apostle John wrote that he desired above all things that we prosper and be in health even as our souls are prospering. In spite of this most Christians think that prospering is a bad thing or at best a not very important thing. If they ever hear this scripture, 3 John 2, most Christians conclude that it must not mean what it obviously says. In fact the opposite is true. John is trying to be direct and to the point. I believe John wrote this specifically to counter gnostic ideas that were already effecting Christian thought toward the end of the Apostle John's life. John links prosperity and health with having a prosperous soul to make the point, a point so radical to modern Christians, that material well being is just as important as the prosperity of your soul.

John was a Jew. In fact, all of the founders of Christianity were Jewish. Jesus was Jewish. Mary was Jewish. Joseph was Jewish. Peter, James, John, Matthew and the Apostle Paul were all Jewish.The Bible is a Jewish book. But this idea about the evil or the unimportance of the material world is not a Jewish idea. The Jews believed that the material world was good. That gold was good. That the things of this life were good. That the pleasures of this life were good. They believed this because the Bible said that God had created the world and said it was good. (Check out this link to Amazon's page for Thou Shalt Prosper a book written by a Jewish rabbi. Or search the book yourself for the word "Gold" and read pages 26 and 27)

On the other hand Greek philosophy assumed that material things were evil or inferior or imperfect. (For a little background on that check out this link to Amazons page for Our Father Abraham, or search the book yourself for the word "Plato" and read pages 168 and 169.)

So here's the long and the short of it. Modern Christianity's attitude toward material things has much more in common with the Greek philosophical attitude toward material things than it does with the Jewish, i.e. Jesus', Peter's, James', John's, Paul's, attitude toward material things. How did this happen?

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This Made Me Feel Loved

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers on Squidoo

Here's a link to a Squidoo lens I'm building on the subject of, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers. If you have any suggestions for books, tapes, articles, links that would build people's faith in God answering their prayers let me know and I'll include them. Here's a link to Squidoo's home page so you can build your own lens.

Video: We're Disciples Too

One last little blurb about Jesus reigning through the Church and then we'll move on to what it takes for the church to reign or put differently why isn't the church reigning? I was reading Luke 10 where Jesus sends out the seventy and the verse that stood out to me was,

Luke 10:2 Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.

We're the more laborers. God calls many but few enlist but that's a different sermon. The point I want you to see is that we're laborers just like those disciples. What did Jesus tell those laborers about their job:

Luke 10:9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you… Luke 10:18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. 19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

That's what we're supposed to be doing… redeeming mankind from the hand of the enemy.

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Why Prayers Aren't Answered

If you only read what the Bible had to say about prayer, i.e. without commentary, or tradition, you would, undoubtedly, conclude that God wants to answer our prayers. You would conclude that prayer is in fact, a sure thing, a certainty. You would conclude that answered prayer was guaranteed. Here, try it and you'll see what I mean, Matthew 7:7-8, Psalms 91:14-15, Matthew 21:22, Matthew 18:19, John 16:24, 1 John 3:22, 1 John 5:14.

And yet we seem to have great difficulty getting our prayers answered. Then, when we fail to receive the answer, in order make ourselves feel better about our lack of results, we invent all manner of theological or philosophical explanations for our prayer failures.

You can't know God's will.
You just never know what God will do.
It must not be God's will.
God is sovereign so it's wrong for us to try and hold him to his promises.
The promises related to prayer just apply to spiritual things.
God always answers but sometimes his answer is no.
God always answers but in his own time.

But none of these answers satisfies. And none of them provide what we really want, i.e. the asked for thing.

Why aren't our prayers answered?

VIDEO:The Purpose of Christianity, Review

Before moving on to the next point I'm taking this program to review what I've been teaching for the past several months. That's pretty good I think, distilling 18 months of teaching into 28 minutes. Here's the outline of that 18 months of teaching:

1. Before Jesus came Satan was the king of the world. The world, mankind were under his dominion. The Bible sometimes calls Satan's kingdom the reign of death or the power of darkness.

2. Jesus came with the good news that the time was fulfilled, the reign of God, the Kingdom of God, the

VIDEO: Jesus Reigns Through The Church #2

Here's more on Jesus reigning through the Church. As I was teaching this same series in Spanish, for our Spanish broadcasts, I came to understand it better myself. Here I discuss how the prayers in Ephesians 1, prayers Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus, are actually prayers that the Ephesians might come to know what God has created them, and us, and all Christians, to be.

The prayer is, I'm pretty sure, a Hebrew parallelism, i.e. Paul repeats the same idea in different ways. When we read it in English we tend to think he's talking about three different things. Here's the prayer and I've numbered the three items which I believe are parallels.

Ephesians 1:16-23
16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: 18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know

Here Paul is praying for the Ephesians, (It applies to us as well though.), to know something. Why doesn't he just tell us what he wants us to know? Why doesn't he just explain it to us? Well in some sense he is telling us, but he doesn't want us to know it with our intellect but in heart, our spirit. He wants us to receive a revelation of it. He wants us to KNOW IT.

What is it he want us to know:

1. what is the hope of his calling, and

2. what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 19 And

3. what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe,

When we read this in English we tend to think that he is talking about three separate things. When however, we understand that Hebrew is full of parallelisms like this, in other words the same idea repeated in different ways for emphasis, it occurs to us that this might be one of those. And I think it is. Paul is repeating the same idea in three different ways. He wants us to get it.

In the first clause he prays for us to know what God has called us to be. What the hope, the purpose, the end state, of his calling us is? Then he prays for us to know what is his inheritance in the saints. Not what our inheritance is but what is his inheritance. "His" means God's. What do we become to God as the result of our becoming saints? What ever it is it involves a lot of glory. "…the riches of the glory," Paul says. Whatever it is that we become to God, it is a very, very, very, glorious thing. Finally he prays that we would know, "what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe."

The first thousand time I read this I thought he was talking about the power that God makes available to us

Jesus Reigns Through The Church

Jesus is in the process of reigning. I Cor 15 tells us that the end will come when he has accomplished the purpose of his reign; which is to put down, i.e. conquer, all rule, authority and power. The last enemy which he will put down is death. These, rule, authority and power, are not men or man made institutions but spiritual forces which oppose the Reign of God upon the earth. This opposition to God's reign upon the earth manifests itself in sickness, poverty, destruction. Jesus does this reigning through the church. Jesus has given the church authority to reign. The Church is the one which is supposed to be engaged in the putting down of all rule and authorities and powers.

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VIDEO: Jesus Is Reigning

Jesus came to become King of the earth. Most Christians kind of have the idea that someday he will return and actually begin to reign. But Jesus is reigning right now. He is reigning until he puts all of God's enemies under his feet. These enemies aren't people they are the spiritual forces who do not want to relinquish their hold on their former subjects, mankind.
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God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #5

This is the last in our series of 5 lessons, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers. God has promised to give us the desires of our heart but most Christians give up on prayer. We give up on prayer because we have the wrong picture of prayer. Our attitude toward prayer is the same as that of a gardener who takes a seed throws it out in his backyard and stands there waiting to see if anything will happen. That's not how prayer works.

Here's three things I know about prayer:

#1 Before you pray you need to build up your faith, otherwise your prayers will have no power. You may look like you're praying but your prayers will be dead. Faith comes from hearing, reading, studying, meditating in God's Word.

#2 After you pray you have to guard your prayer and you have to water it with thanksgiving.

#3. You will reap in due season if you faint not.

Audio:  MP3 about 40 minutes.    Large File 42 Mbs(Good for burning your own CD)    Small File 13 Mbs(Good for just listening.)

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #4

 This turned into a sort of review of the past three messages.

The first point I was trying to make in this series is that our picture of prayer is wrong. We think that God is the one withholding the answer and that we somehow have to get Him to release the answer. But the Bible teaches that God wants our prayers answered, He desires to answer our prayers. The Bible talks about prayer like results are gauranteed. Jesus talked like answered prayer was a certainty, a sure thing. So God is not the problem, He's not the hangup, He's not the one witholding the answer. He says, "Ask and ye shall receive." God says "Everyone that asketh receiveth." God says "Whatever you ask in prayer believing you shall recieve." That's God's attitude toward prayer.

The second point was that in order to think about prayer correctly we should think about it like growing a garden. You could say that it's God's will for everyone to have a beautiful garden. But everyone doesn't have a beautiful garden. Why? Because it's not God's will? No, because they haven't done what is necessary to have a beautiful garden. Prayer works the same way.

The third point was that when our prayers aren't answered instead of putting the responsiblity for prayer failure on the will of God we should ask instead where we have missed it. There are conditions to our prayers being answered.

Audio: MP3     Large File 42mb (If you want to burn a CD)    Small file 13mb (If you just want to listen.)

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers Audio, #3

This is part 3 of our series, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers: Why didn't God answer my prayers? This is the question we ask when it looks like our prayers haven't been answered. But this is the wrong question and whenever you ask the wrong question you get the wrong answer.  It's the wrong question because it assumes that the answer to our prayers is totally dependent upon God. The right question is: Why weren't my prayers answered? This at least leaves a little room for our responsibility in prayer and the Bible does teach that we have a part to play.
Audio: MP3 about 35 minutes and 10 mb.

Prayer Is Not A Slot Machine!

In the last post I argued that the Bible clearly teaches that God wants to answer our prayers and yet Christians complain that their prayers are not answered. The way Jesus and the apostles John and James and Paul talked about prayer it was a sure thing.

John 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. 24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

1 John 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

But prayer doesn't seem to be a sure thing. Why?

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #2

Prayer: It's A Garden, Not a Slot Machine.

Last post we saw that, at least according to Jesus, prayer is pretty much a sure thing. Ask and it shall be given you, for everyone that asketh receiveth, if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask it shall done for them, all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive, whatever you ask the father in my name he will give it you, Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full … etc.

The point I wanted to make in this message is that prayer is a sure thing but sure in the same way that growing a garden is sure. Anyone can have a garden. No one sits around bemoaning their lack of a garden saying, " I guess it must not be God's will for me to have a garden." We all understand that if we want to have a garden we can have one but effort will be required on our part. No one prays, "Lord if it be your will give me a beautiful garden." Answered prayer is a certainty. It's a sure thing.  It's as sure as growing a garden.

MP3: About 41 Minutes

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers, Audio #1

This is the first in a five week series, God Wants To Answer Your Prayers. Most people tend to see God as the obstacle to their prayers being answered. We think that God needs to be convinced to move on our behalf. We believe that God has to be talked into the notion of answering our prayers. We try making Him feel guilty, arguing with Him, promising Him, threatening Him, wearing Him down all to try to get Him to do that which is so easily within His power, answer our prayer. But these ideas are completely contradicted by what Jesus said about prayer. The Bible teaches that God wants, it's His desire, He yearns to answer our prayers. Here's some links to the scriptures referenced in this message:
Matt. 7:7-11, Matt. 18:19, Matt 21:22, Mark 11:24, John 16:23-24, James 1:5, James 5:14-15, 1John 3:21-22, 1 John 5:14-15, Luke 11:5-9

Audio: MP3 About 40 Minutes about 20 Mbs.

God Wants To Answer Your Prayers

Most Christians kind of have the idea that God is the primary obstacle to answered prayer. We think that if we could just figure out how to convince God to let loose of the answer we would receive the help we need. So we cry, or threaten or promise or attempt to bargain in the hope that we will somehow hit on the right strategy for getting God to move on our behalf.

But the Bible teaches something completely different about prayer. The Bible teaches that God wants to answer our prayers. It is His desire to give us what we ask for in prayer. Here's one of my favorite scriptures:

Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

Ask and it shall be given you. Shall be given you… Shall be given… Shall be given you. This is Jesus talking and he doesn't say, "might be given you" or "it's probable that it will be given you," or even "if you've pleased God it will be given you" or "if God's in a good mood it will be given you."  He says ask and it shall be given  you. He doesn't leave himself an out. If I was his lawyer I would have advised him to add some small print here, maybe a footnote or a loophole of some kind, but he doesn't do that. In fact if he were to do that it would be impossible for us to get our prayers answered. He has to provide certainty. He can't equivocate. Any ambiguity on his part will be grounds for doubting on our part. And when we doubt we can be certain of not receiving from God.

So Jesus is making clear to us that, for His part, God will give us what we ask for, when we ask. He repeats it again for emphasis in the next verse:

Anti-Amnesty Or Just Anti-Mexican

(This is an edited version of an earlier post.)

Maybe it's just me, (Hey I’m a Mexican American conservative, who lives about 15 miles from the Mexican Border, I used to practice a little immigration law, what do I know.) but every time John Derbyshire, over at The Corner, let's loose a rant against illegal immigrants, the image that pops into my head is of Bill "The Butcher" Cutting the leader of the nativist gang in the movie Gangs of New York. I guess I shouldn't be too hard on the Derb as he suffers from a most common affliction; hating that most which you used to be. You see Derb used to be an illegal alien and just like no one hates smoking as much as ex-smokers apparently no one hates illegal immigration as much as former illegal immigrants.

I should know, my dad and the Derb are cut from the same cloth, he also being a former illegal immigrant, and vigorous objectioner to current illegals. My dad was here illegally in the '50s, back in

Jesus Came To Become King

Haven't posted any video in a while because we've been busy with the move to our new location and with starting up the new Spanish language church hopefully I can post a little more regularly now.

We've been talking for quite some time about the purpose of Christianity. Here's the progression of the argument so far: We have tried to demonstrate the purpose of Christianity by: Looking at the condition of man before Jesus came, i.e. man was under the rule of Satan; By looking at at the message which Jesus preached, i.e. the Kingdom of God. In this message we look at the purpose of Christianity, from the point of view of what Jesus did by dieing on the cross, rising from the dead and ascending to the right hand of the father, Jesus came to become King.

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The Power of Your Words #3

So it's certain that the people who heard Jesus speak and the disciples who recorded
his words believed that words have power. (You can read part #1 here and #2 here to see the evidence for that.)

In order to correctly interpret the Bible passages about "words" we need to start with this understanding. If we don't interpret the scriptures according to what their plain meaning was for the first century Jews who heard Jesus teach then we are sure to mis-interpret them. (All of this of course assumes that Jesus wanted his audience to understand him; which I don't think is a huge assumption.)

Okay, now that we've got all that foundational stuff out of the way lets get to the actual scriptures. I want to show you in a number of different ways that the Bible clearly teaches that our words have power, i.e. they can effect the world around us.

1. Jesus said our words have power
Let's start with the most obvious scripture:

Mark 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Jesus states that if we are able to believe that "…those things which he saith shall come to pass…" our words can move mountains. This principle, that faith filled words can effect the world is repeated explicitly in the gospels on three separate occasions. I don't mean that this story of the cursing of the fig tree followed by the teaching that faith filled words can move mountains is repeated three times, but that this principle of the power of faith filled words is repeated in three different stories; which is a pretty rare occurrence for the relatively brief Gospels.

1. The story of the boy the disciples couldn't heal found in Matt. 17:14-21, with the relevant scripture being:

Matt:17:19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? 20And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Matthew also repeats the fig tree story at Matt. 21:19-22.

2. The story where the disciples request Jesus to increase their faith at  Luke 17:5-10  with the relevant scripture:

Luke 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

So on these three separate occasions, fig tree, couldn't heal the child, and increase our faith, this principle of the power of words is repeated. It's hard to think of any other principle emphasized this much in the gospels. Not do unto others. Not turn the other cheek. The unusual repetition of this principle suggests that it's something important.

In addition there are other references where a similar, I belive identical, principle is mentioned:

I'll get to these scriptures next.

The Power of Your Words #2

So the "theologically correct," sophisticated, evangelicals are certain, to the point of mocking those who state otherwise, that our words do not have any real power. Words are mere blasts of wind to them. They do not effect the course of nature and they certainly have no effect of our lives. They know this to be true. It's an "of course," a certainty, a given,  even though they've arrived at this knowledge without investigation or study, they are sure it is so.

In this knowledge they are opposed by most of the people who are now alive or who have ever lived. I love this story related by John Derbyshire (Pronounced dar' bu shur) who was educated as a mathematician but is a polymath by nature who now writes for National Review and National Review Online among other journals.

In last month's diary I mentioned Hank Williams's rather macabre song  " The Angel of Death." Now, I hate to admit it, but this song is kind of catchy. It is so catchy I have been singing it around the house. This stopped abruptly when Rosie overheard me. "WHY ARE YOU SINGING THAT?" she shrieked. "WE DON'T WANT THOSE KINDS OF WORDS IN OUR HOUSE!" I murmured defensively that it is, after all, only a song.

At such times I think of the Comte de Beauvoir's remark about the Chinese being the least religious people in the world, but the most superstitious. A child of, or at any rate a descendant of, the Enlightenment, with an early training in science and mathematics, I am inclined to think that words are basically patterns of vibrating molecules in air. The idea that singing about the Angel of Death might attract old Azrael's attention to my inconspicuous little suburban homestead seems preposterous.

On reflection, though, I am not so sure of myself. I recall a dinner-party conversation I heard

The Power of Your Words

Reading through the blogosphere I came across this, apparently well regarded evangelical blog, mocking (He files it under confused people and refers to it as "Snake oil." ) Joel Osteen, pastor of apparently the largest church congregation in America, for saying that our words effect our lives. No argument. No scriptures. Just the assumption that this must be ridiculous. I guess that's what passes for intellect amongst the evangelicals.

The problem for evangelicals is that they want to keep the supernatural origin of scripture but not its supernatural content. They need the Bible to be, in some sense, the "Word of God," i.e. supernatural in origin because without this it has no authority. But their modern, well educated, thoroughly naturalized,  mind reels against what this "supernatural" book actually says. So they push all of the supernatural into the way distant, "Bible days" past or into the far distant eschatological future. (One famous evangelical Bible teacher apparently even goes so far as to argue that there weren't even really that many miracles in the Bible.) So the modern, "theologically correct" evangelical, sounds pretty much like the Scottish philosopher Hume who argued that since he had never seen a miracle, therefore miracles did not exist. There isn't much distance from there are no miracles to there are no miracles now.

The Bible's obvious belief in things like curses and demons and blessings and visions and dreams and prophecies and healings and exorcisms makes the average evangelical very uncomfortable. They apparently think something along these lines:

Geez, everybody knows these things aren't real. Curses aren't real they're just a superstition. Jesus wouldn't have believed in any of this superstitious nonsense no matter what the plain meaning of the words may be. We can't have our Savior sounding like some character out of a Flannery O'Connor story. He must of meant something else. Something spiritual. Something enlightening. Something for another world or another time. Something supernal. And most important of all something not susceptible to empirical investigation. We can't be having any real world, concrete, verifiable propositions in our religion. If we did that we might end up proving our religion wrong.

Well the all purpose, "everybody knows" is just another way of saying it isn't fashionable to believe in these things. If the Bible really is the word of God then we should believe what it says without regard to current intellectual fashion. We shouldn't adjust it's meaning to fit what we "know" to be true. We shouldn't react with embarrassment upon encountering some "theologically incorrect" saying of Jesus and try to twist the plain meaning into something we find more acceptable to our culture. The Bible teaches that God's wisdom no matter how foolish it may sound to us is greater than our wisdom.

1 Corinthians 1:19-30 “19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. … 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: 29 That no flesh should glory in his presence. 30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:”

We're the ones who are supposed to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. It's not the Word of God which is to be transformed to accommodate our understanding.

I'll have more on the power of words later.

God Wants You Healed!

Here's a great article about healing, Healing In Redemption, by the author, Joe McIntyre of one of my favoirite books, E.W. Kenyon, The True Story.  Every Christian should have a copy of this article if just for the footnotes and references.

Here's a couple blurbs:

Another hindrance to the idea of healing in the atonement is the influence of Platonic Dualism on the Church. An increasing number of scholars are challenging our Western presuppositions and noting that we are viewing reality through a Greek influenced lens, rather than a Hebrew perspective. Marvin Wilson says that we “have often found ourselves in the confusing situation of trying to understand a Jewish Book through the eyes of Greek culture.” One of the ways in which we are guilty of this mistake, according to Wilson, is viewing our world dualistically, instead of as a “dynamic unity.”

Unlike the ancient Greek, the Hebrew viewed the world as good. Though fallen and